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256 FEDERAL REPORTER

dence, but upon what principle the remarks of one who is neither aparty nor a witness can be regarded as competent we do not perceive.Yet in this testimony, there is nothing inconsistent with the courseof events as plainly proven. When Kayzer began to produce by hisprocesses a hard fat, it occurred certainly to Mr. Procter (the plaintiff'spresident), and not improbably to Kayzer himself, that since substan-tially saturated cotton seed oil was a fair commercial equivalent for'animal stearin, that since frying and shortening compounds werelargely manufactured by combining animal stearin with cotton seedoil, so they might be made by mechanically mixing liquid oil and hard-ened oil. Such experiment was tried, not at the factory of plaintiff,which had no machinery for the purpose, but at the establishment ofone McCaw, who was already a manufacturer of lardlike compoundsemploying animal fat.We are satisfied of the truth (entirely apart from all presumptions)of plaintiff's testimony that it was not until Kayzer had returnedto England, or was on the point of goihg, that it occurred to any onethat is was not necessary to first harden by hydrogenic saturation thecotton seed oil, and then mix it with the fluid article, in order to make4 lardlike compound, but that the hardening process might be arrest-ed in the manner and for the purposes disclosed by Burchenal's ap-plication.Assuming, now, that this mental operation or discovery in the senseof the patent law (Walker on Patents [5th Ed'.] 2) amounted to in-vention, we not only find no evidence that Burchenal was not the -in-ventor, but it is a strain upon credulity to believe that, when thisplaintiff corporation might just as well have advanced an application'in Kayzer's name, it deliberately preferred the fraud of. prosecutingit in that of Burchenal.It may be, and we think is, quite true that the evidence revealsBurchenal as not primarily a chemist, but a man of business, deeplyinterested in the advancement of his corporation's prosperity. Werecognize the fact that there is a fundamental difference between"new articlesmof manufacture" and "new articles of commerce" (Cere-aline, etc., Co. v. Bates, 101 Fed. 272, 41 C. C. A. 341); and it mayalso be quite true that Burchenal's contribution to the sum of humanknowledge grew out- of the trained business man's observation of thepossibilities of a chemist's process, which he was himself quite in-capable of devising.But, just as it is immaterial whether 'a patentee, "understands orcorrectly states the theory or philosophy of the mechanism which pro-duces" his new result (Van Epps v. United; etc., Co., 143 Fed. 869,75 C. C. A. 77), so it is immaterial whether, when Burchenal observ-ed and seized upon as a new and useful thing a half hydrogenicallysaturated oil he was actuated rather by commercialinstinct than acquir-ed chemical knowledge. It is enough that he had both a mental con-ception and a tangible reduction to practice (Corrington v. Westing-house, etc., Co., 178 Fed. at page 715, 103 C. C. A. 479), and thatis all that the patent law requires. Quite possibly this patentee wouldnever have conceived the thought, had he 'not watched Kayzer; but